Champion
by Arwyn Atreides
Summary: Promises are binding. Pain is hard to forget. Children are the most precious things on Earth. And sometimes the only way to beat something inhuman is to be Human.


Champion

A little boy only seven years old laid on a vampyr, several inhuman years his senior, the creature was thought to be as evil as he was old, but the boy was napping as the creature stroked his hair. The boy had no reason to fear because the vampyr was his brother, or so the vampyr had made him think. He was the play thing for the beast because the beast was lonely. The vampyr was evil and cruel but to this boy he showed nothing but love.

An old vampyr lay resting with a human, only seven years of age and as innocent as he was young, the boy brought the vampyr the utmost joy. The vampyr loved the little creature whose precious heartbeat he was listening to. He was an old evil creature but this baby, almost a fetus in comparison, loved him all the same and unconditionally. The boy shifted in his sleep and the vampyr hummed the soothing song that had always helped him sleep.

Ice blue eyes stared up at the stars and the nose under them smelled the wind bring a familiar and unwelcome scent. The vampyr sat up carefully and cradled the boy in his arms.

"You should just have sex with him, sleep with him, I hear they're great fun when they're that age." A voice whispered near the vampyr's ear. "and it'd get rid of that nasty sexual tension you've got built up."

"Don't speak of Mokuba that way!" the vampyr turned to face the other of his kind. "Just because you feel it necessary to do that with your underage doppelganger toy, Yami, doesn't mean we all feel the urge to violate small children."

The other vampyr grinned, "But you don't see _me_ pining for some fulfillment."

The blue-eyed vampyr felt physically sick after the last comment. He could _never_ think of the little boy as anything other that his little brother. He unconsciously held the boy closer to himself; he feared the evil of the world had come to harm the boy in the form of Yami. "Yami, please, keep your mental illnesses to yourself." He gently stood up and held the boy, Mokuba, close to his chest. He started into the house, he wanted Mokuba as far away from Yami as physically possible.

Soft, cynical, laughter started, the kind that makes neck hairs stand at attention, but the blue eyed beast knew it was only the pedophile Yami so he ignored it. "You won't be able to ignore the call for long! You're not as saintly as you think you are."

There was no reason to respond to the goading comment because the vampyr with the icy eyes was firm in his knowledge that he would never intentionally hurt his little brother.

"I am your master, Seto. You do not turn your back to me." The air shifted and so did the mood, but Seto did not turn address the older vampyr. "As your _sire_ I command you."

Seto stopped. "As a free vampyr I command my _myself_."

"I should have never showed you this Life!" Yami spat bitterly. "I should have kept you a _human_ _slave_!"

"You should have." Seto, let the frozen words hit the silence like an iceberg. He knew all of the usual complaints, arguments, and rantings of his other-father all too well.

"I should have kept you Bound!"

"You never could have."

"Then I'll Rebind you!" Yami growled.

"You gave up that chance a _very_ long time ago."

"I should have abandoned or killed you _long ago_."

"Don't mourn over past decisions, it blinds you to the present and keeps you from the future." Seto left the elder and entered his home. The boy stirred and Seto started to sing again as he walked to the boy's room. 'I will protect you mind, body, and soul.' Laying the boy down and tucking him in Seto prayed to the goodness that was in and around the boy before him. He knew no name for it but called it 'Love.'

"Dear Love, please protect and let me be able to keep my brother safe from any harm that could befall him. Love, I fear that my sire may wish ill on Mokuba, please protect him if I can't." He finished his prayer and kissed the boy's forehead when there was a soft knock that came from the door and a familiar friendly voice called Seto to the sitting room.

"If you even _pretended_ to show your sire _half_ the love you give to that child you _and_ he would be much better off" the other vampyr told Seto, matter-of-factly, for the millionth time.

"He doesn't deserve love." Seto said in a cold tone as he looked into his teacup. It seemed as is he was trying to freeze the whole cup of tea with his eyes. He was thankful for his friend's visit but he was still angry with his sire and upset over what he had said. He told his friend about the unwanted visit and expressed to him how much he hated his sire.

"I never said he _deserved_ love, he is not an angel, but he still freed you and didn't do any of the things many of the elders told him to do with you. You do know that you're not very well liked in our community," the vampyr sipped at a cup of tea and watched with one eye as Seto, for the most part, ignored him. "He _is _your sire."

"And what of yours? What ever happened to _your_ sire?" Seto turned from the pocket of space that he had been staring into and looked at the silver-haired man who had frozen upon hearing the last comment. The low below was thrown and it was too late now, not that he cared because he was just too angry to care. The other vampyr then sat his cup down carefully and stood up.

"I still honor some of his memory, though he deserved even less than your sire." He turned his face away from Seto. "Give respect where respect is due."

"I should do what you did, just kill-!"

"You're spoiled!" a blizzard blew through the normally cheery man's voice. It was a rare thing for him to raise his voice and it caught Seto by surprise.

"Do you know what that monster put me through!" Seto stood up, fuming. "I'm _far_ from spoiled!"

The other vampyr laughed softly, bordering on taunting and maniacal, "Your master was a saint in comparison to mine, you just are ignorant to what I went through!"

"If anyone is spoiled its _you_, Pegasus! You who gets to sit on your sire's throne and live like a king!"

Both men were tense, each angry because the other did not understand. The clock ticked and slowly the silver haired Pegasus turned and walked to Seto who was standing in front the couch he had been sitting on. He smiled, "For every gain there is a sacrifice."

He carefully lifted the hair that had covered the left side of his face, for as long as Seto had known him after they had lost contact when they were little. Seto looked at the golden 'eye' that sat in Pegasus's left eye socket. He had never seen it so he did not know what it was and he did not know its significance, but he knew it was bad, unnatural.

"My sire tore out my eye. Put this in its place and made sure that my real eye would never grow back, even though he had made me a vampyr _that_ was so I wouldn't die from the procedure." He watched as Seto's expression changed. "And do you know _why_ he did this to me?"

There was a deadly silence as Pegasus's one real eye bore into Seto and Seto's two stayed fixed on the haunting gold eye.

"Because he wanted the power this object possesses, but he didn't want any of the trouble. Why me, you may ask?" Pegasus was posing the questions that he knew Seto would ask. "Because he had no qualms about destroying me if there were any complications and he had to 'sacrifice the test subject.'"

Seto opened his mouth to say something but he couldn't get a sound out

"He was an evil bastard but I still find something to honor."

He released the hair and let it fall over his fake eye. Turning and walking, leaving a shocked Seto to stand in his sitting room, he said "Learn to look for the good in everything or else Yami _will_ get the best of you and you will lose little Mokuba."

A while after his friend had left, shaken, Seto found his way through the mansion to where Mokuba was still sleeping. He sat down beside his bed and began to pray again.

"Seto tell me about what we are going to do and where we'll go." It was not added but '_after we leave this place_' was understood

It was a regular question, a routine of sorts. Seto, a blue eyed youth at the time, didn't mind answering it over and over again, though. "We'll go anyplace we want, do anything that we want, and best of all we won't need ask anyone for anything."

The little boy, the same age as Seto and from the same orphanage but a bit small for his age, smiled and his eyes glittered with hope and excitement. "I can't wait to be free."

Both knew somewhere deep within themselves that they would never be free but for a little while every so often they liked to imagine that they would be free soon. They sat in the hallway, imagining their impossible freedom. They spent their time together playing little games like children do, but games that involved them being miraculously freed by some force or person that they did not know.

"SETO!" a voice boomed up the set of stairs and the smaller boy jumped. "We are leaving!"

The smaller boy clutched at Seto. Seto stroked the little boy's strangely silver hair.

"Seto!" footsteps accompanied the growl and the blue eyed youth started to the stairs. Turning he smiled at his silver haired friend. He left after that.

He was promptly grabbed by the arm, his Master moved his face close to the boy's and snarled "You come when I call the _first_ time." The master dragged him out to the carriage and flung him in. "You better be ready for my guests by ten." His voice came from the darkness of the carriage, near Seto.

Seto shifted away from the voice. He was uncomfortable near the man but he acted as if he was just angry.

A hand shot out in the dark and latched on like a talon to the boy's thigh. "Why don't you like being near me?" there was a leer that the boy felt even in the dark. "You always move away." It wasn't a sympathetic or pouting tone. The hand squeezed the small thigh; Seto winced and fixed his eyes into the dark. The voice that went with the claw hissed close to the small ear. "You are mine." The claw tightened its grip. "And unless I _tell you_ to move _you don't_."

The blue eyes fought back tears as a crack was heard and a hairline fracture ran up the small femur. The boy winced, he couldn't help himself and he scolded himself for his weakness.

"Don't think your getting out of your duties tonight," the man hissed. "_all_ of your duties." He shifted and removed his hand from Seto's leg.

Seto continued to stare in the dark. He refused to cry because it would satisfy the beast, the lion as he had come to call them at times, beside him.

"Why don't you cry?" the voice asked with more than just passing interest. "Not even alone at night."

Seto shivered slightly.

"Are you trying to gain power? Show me that _you_ are the one in charge of yourself and your life."

An arm snaked around the youth's shoulders, "Tell me why."

Seto refused to open his mouth, he had to stay strong. He was in control because he would not give in to the beast.

A clawed hand grabbed his face, holding the boy's chin in the palm and applying pressure to the jaw with its lethal digits. "Open. I can crack your mouth open like an oyster to get to your pearl or you can open up and give it to me. Answer me, why don't you cry?" Seto noticed that he had lost interest in the reason he had moved away. The boy would recall his master's fickle childishness later and realize how much more mature he was compared to his daemon "master."

Seto was torn between wanting to have power and between simply not wanting his jaw to be cracked. "I can't."

"Why?"

"Because I just can't." the hand squeezed in response to his answer.

"Liar."

"I don't cry because I can't."

"_Can not or will not?_"

"Can not."

The hand released the boy's face. The beast seemed satisfied with the answer he had been given. "You know you _used_ to cry, even graced us with a scream and sometimes you bawled. You were soft then, but ultimately useless."

A bolt of something, a wave of adrenaline, crashed into Seto and he jolted awake. A light sweat clung to his skin and his chest heaved with every strangled breath. His eyes darted around the room but no monsters jumped out at him…which made him even _more_ ill at ease. 'Nothing but a dream, just a memory.'

He looked at the child and touched his face, he was still sleeping and unaware of his 'brother's' torment. That was how Seto wanted him to stay, innocent and pure. He never wanted the boy to ever know about the darkness that was around him, the darkness that ate away at Seto and threatened to consume Mokuba's sweet innocence.

Seto shook as he stood up. There was the feeling of evil that clung to him, a slimy residue left from the memory of his 'other-father.' Fearing the boy would be contaminated, fearing that the sickness would spread, he left and prayed to Love that all of the darkness would leave with him.

"It's funny to see you care so much for someone who isn't Pegasus." A voice reached out to Seto from further down the hallway as he closed the door. "Your icy eyes become warm pools."

Something seized in the blue eyed creature and yet there was something that calmed. The voice was as familiar to Seto as the voice that came from his own mouth. "Hello."

The voice moved closer, "Just because you hate him there is no reason to forget about the rest of us. Some of us actually miss you, Darkling." An arm came around Seto and another joined it to make a hug. "We understand why you'll never come back but saying 'hello' won't give him an upper hand."

Seto returned the embrace.

"Stay still and you'll be all fixed up," carefully hands cleaned scratches on a small cheek as the child winced. A tear teetered, unsure of whether it would be released from the blue eye. "It's ok, Darkling its ok to cry, I'll make sure he doesn't know." The voice tried to soothe the youth as the arms invited the child in for a hug. All they did were invite, it was up to the boy whether he would accept the show of affection.

The little boy wanted to cry, his face hurt and he trusted this adult not to tell but he wanted to be strong more. If he was to fight the creature he had to be strong. He was going to fight the creature and be victorious!

The adult only smiled as the blue eyed boy scowled at him. He knew that his patient was not looking at him. "Alright, let's just put this bandage on and you'll be set."

The child's eyes traveled over his guardian as he waited. He wondered who the man was, this person had cared for him for as long as he could remember since he had left the orphanage, when he was three. He had tended to him when he was hurt, sick, and in other ways acted as a real parent should. He was the opposite of the Master.

"My name? Will knowing it make you happy?" the adult tilted his head as he adjusted the bandage.

The blue eyes fell to the ground, how could he have known about the thought?

"All of the creatures can read thoughts and all of them are lions and you are one of the sheep that they hunt."

Silence met the words.

"And there shall be a lion that shall care for a sheep."

"What does that-?"

"The Master will want to see you soon; you know how he gets after outbursts."

The boy wanted to know what the riddle meant, how his guardian knew his thought and, most of all, who his caretaker was.

"When you figured it out you hated me and wouldn't come near me for weeks."

Seto started. He had lost himself again. As his vision cleared his memory was replaced by the vision of his white haired former guardian. The man who had kept him some beatings, had taken care of his wounds, and had taught him more than his 'Master' could have hoped to.

He looked at the man who had just read his thoughts because his guard was down. "You promised after that day that you would never read my thoughts again." Seto spoke _vindictively_.

The man smiled and nodded, "But you know as well as I that I broke that promise many times, it was one of the only ways to take care of you."

Seto needed to be angry at someone so he ignored the truth that was in front of him, "That's no excuse, Bakura, I'm also too old for that ridiculous nickname."

"Forgive me. I suppose I shouldn't have come."

"Why _are_ you here?" Seto turned and started walking to the sitting room. His kind didn't just stop by for no reason.

"I don't really know. I just know that the Master was here." Bakura followed Seto, remembering how he had watched the baby grow into a man. "I see you moved since last we met."

Seto acknowledged the lame attempt at making conversation for what it was. Still the desire to just be angry filled him, "And yet you found me." He entered the room and sat down.

"We always know our _other_ family, those we've been Bound with and where they are." Bakura sat down in a chair opposite of the sofa Seto was sitting on. He smiled.

Seto simply nodded. Even though he liked having Bakura be able to find him he knew that that was how Yami had found him as well.

There was a shifting and Bakura moved to Seto's side. He sat still and looked off into the distance but when he turned to look at Seto there was a look that Seto remembering from very long ago. It was a look of nothing but love; it was a bit childish as well. This change didn't alarm the younger of the two, he had seen Bakura change suddenly, and although Yami changed as well there was a world of difference between the two of them. Yami was flippant and vicious and would lash out at the drop of a hat, Bakura always made sure that if he was violent he was no where near Seto and he was careful with his changes. Seto never knew if it was a mood swing but sometimes it seemed like it was a completely different personality.

"You've grown so much! The little boy who used to cry in my lap, used to draw me pictures and, best of all, give me hugs is now _completely gone_." Bakura spoke as if he was about to express pride in his child's achievements but the tone changed abruptly at the last two words. The words became filled with bitterness. Seto became very defensive and angry until he heard: "Why did I let this happen to my baby boy, my sweet sweet Darkling?"

Seto had seen this side before but something told me that the man was going to get much worse.

Bakura touched his child's face, ran his fingertips over lines and features, he stopped as he traced an eyebrow. "What things these eyes saw…I remember once you wanted to have them ripped out. You were so shaken and scarred and I let…I let them do that to you" His hands went back to tracing as Seto's expression became troubled. "Oh no don't frown, please smile!" fingertips brushed his lips and a smile was awarded to the begging guardian. "That's much better!"

Tears welled up in Bakura's eyes and very suddenly he threw his arms around his little boy, all grown and jaded, buried his head in his baby's chest and wailed. He screamed into the chest, something clawed at him, inside, and he screamed in absolute and utter agony.

Seto sat shocked and shaken. He had never seen this, he was even more worried. Carefully he wrapped one arm around his guardian. "Ssssh now. Just let it all go."

The head on Seto's chest rose and sad, wet, eyes looked at him. "I failed you. You hate me, and I deserve it, every last bit of it. I loved you, I still do- and I let them do that to you- I just let them do everything! I let them-…"the eyes filled with more water, "they raped you!"

The pupils in the crystal blue eyes constricted to pinpricks.

'I will not cry! I will stay strong!' a boy, barely a young man, thought as his eyes stared past all of the harsh faces that loomed over him. Sweat flowed over him, soaking him, sweat and his own blood. 'I will not let him win!' But even as he thought it a horrid pain ripped through his lower body. He screamed. His sight turned black. His consciousness fell away.

Suddenly he crashed on hard bitingly cold tiles and slowly the solid black in his mind became just haziness. He winced and felt his consciousness returning, the pain bit into his brain from a million areas of his body.

"Get yourself patched up." A gruff voice said as the person who had dropped him off left.

The young man tried to get himself up, if even to just _crawl_, to the door ahead of him, the door to his safe haven. He tried to push himself up but try as he might it felt as if someone had replaced his muscles with water. There was only one thing he could do and he hated that he was so helpless, he scolded himself for it later, but he didn't want to die there.

The moan of an animal dying slowly in agony came at Bakura's room door. He ignored it but soon he could swear that the moans were actually a hoarse voice calling "Bakura! Bakura!" A second later he gasped when he realized that it _was_ a person's voice!

He ran out and found a ghastly present on his doorstep.

"Ba…kura…! Ba…ku-cough-ra…!"

"Darkling!" Bakura dropped to his knees beside the boy he had ultimately failed.

"That was the beginning. The beginning of the end of your innocence. And in a few nights another will share the same fate." Fear and desperation rose into the eyes of Bakura. "He's not like you, Darkling! He's not strong like you! He cries! He laughs!_ He still has hope!_" Bakura cried out once more.

Then suddenly his hands grabbed Seto's shirt urgently. "He'll never survive! He'll die! I can't fail him! Please! Please I can't, not him too!"

"Do you love him more than me…" the words came from Seto's mouth but he wasn't quite sure if he was the one saying it. Why should he care about this, why should he be so emotional?

Bakura looked at him and his face changed slightly, "I love you both just the same but I _know_ that he won't make it. He _will_ die, and if not on the outside, then on the inside. He's still fragile still a pure child" There was Seto's guardian speaking to him now.

"So what about me? Was it alright for _me_ to go through that horror because _I_ was strong? I can be scarred and beaten and all of that other stuff just because I can take it?" Seto pushed away Bakura.

"No, Darkling, it was not that. I would have never put you through that if I could have stopped it, I tried, I told you that."

"Then why is it that I'm still hurt! And why are you here begging for a hero! I have to go help some little bastard because _he's_ not strong enough! He doesn't have a strong enough will to live and so that means that _I_ have to save him! Get out!"

"Seto, no, please!" Bakura looked desperate once more.

"No! I am _not_ going to go rushing out to save some little pitiful-!"

"He's like your brother!" Bakura screamed. "He is small and he still knows what love and affection is! He is just as sweet as your little one and I have never had the power to do anything to those that I have seen tortured, and I hated knowing what they did to you and knowing that I could do almost nothing but now I know someone who _can_ help and that is why I am begging you! I would hurt if you hated me but I'd survive and push on if only you would please save that little boy and his sister! You were fourteen when it first started, he's only seven and his sister is still only five! If something happens they'll die! And I will die as well, I can't do it anymore, I can't watch all of the little loves of my life, my children being taken to be slaughtered, just please help them, do that and I'll be eternally grateful, and anything you ask that I can give is yours. Even my life, if you hate so much then I'd give my life, anything for them."

Seto watched the passion and the fire, saw it burning in Bakura's eyes and he felt more pain. He hurt because all this passion and it was for some other children, not for him. Bakura had been his, that was the one person who had taken of him and cared for him, and to hear him speak of other children that he loved that much to hear him offer up his life for their freedom and well being, it hurt. Had Bakura felt this way about him when he was hurt? Had he cried and tried to bargain with someone to try to help? Had he offered his life?

Seto had never felt like this, never felt Bakura was truly his father, he had never realized how he felt. Suddenly he felt bad, everything he had done, everything he had said, all the times that he had hurt Bakura, calling him a liar, treating him like the vicious beasts. He felt the weight of it all and he heard Pegasus's words in his mind. 'You're spoiled!' He was a brat, the way he had gotten away with things, had thought that people's lives revolved around him, he was a brat. His chest tightened and he felt awful because of the way he had acted over the years.

Then Bakura's reference to his little brother came to mind, that little boy that was in Yami's clutches was like his little brother. He wouldn't let that happen to Mokuba, why should he let that happen to that little boy and his sister.

How that game of destiny does change. Destined for greatness and then turned cold Seto was to be a hero no matter what hand life had dealt him, that was always his fate.

Seto agreed to help the children, he told Bakura to clear his mind and to build up his mental guard because Bakura was going to have to go back and any hint of a rebellion would alert them and the children would surely die.

"Thank you, Dark- Seto." Bakura bowed as he left.

Seto took the phone and called Pegasus and apologized. "I need to take care of some business and I need you to watch Mokuba while I'm away."

"What is going on, Seto, I don't like your tone?" Pegasus asked, concerned.

There was a pause and then Seto spoke a few words that struck one of Pegasus's chords. "_When we're free we will go anywhere, do anything, and best of all we won't have to ask for permission._ If I'm not back in a day take Mokuba and disappear."

"Seto-!"

Seto hung up the phone. He didn't want to have any second thoughts, he didn't have the luxury of having a wavering mind. He had to be concrete.

The bell rang and a maid answered the door.

Yami sat in something that looked like a throne room, naturally on the throne where he felt he belonged, with two little children standing beside it. Seto noticed that the girl sported a black eye and the boy had a slice across his cheek. But more disturbing was the resemblance between the boy and his captor, Seto noticed that Yami had been to vain as to even have the boy groomed in certain ways to make him look even more like his 'master.' He needed a clear mind and so he ignored them.

"What brings you here finally?" Yami asked, feeling superior since he thought that he had somehow broken Seto.

Seto just stared at him.

"Well?" Yami asked and sat up a bit straighter.

Seto looked up at the paintings that the former pharaoh had had put up, all of them were Yami. A painting for every century was how it was supposed to be.

"The paintings? You came to see the paintings?" there was a twinge of something different in the master of the house's voice, a little stress, a little interest? What could it be?

Still Seto said nothing, he started walking around, making sure not to look in Yami's direction. He could hear the other man shift in his seat.

"Did you want something? Why are you here?" there was something frantic and a bit suspicious in the voice.

Seto continued walking and ignoring the questions but then he began to whistle.

Yami bolted upright from his throne. "ANSWER ME! LOOK AT ME!"

There was a small snicker from one of the children, Seto couldn't really tell which. A loud smack followed it.

"DON'T YOU DARE LAUGH UNTIL I TELL YOU TO!"

"Yes, Master." The little girl replied. Seto caught a glimpse of what had happened from the corner of his eye.

"Now, you, what do you want and don't ignore me because I snap you like a twig!" Yami yelled at Seto.

Seto turned his head as if being addressed for the first time. "Excuse me? Is something the matter?"

A twitch started in Yami's right eye. His mouth started to break out into a maniacal smile. "Yes, what do you want here?"

Seto simply smiled, "Oh just-…" he left his sentence off and then continued to walk around.

"JUST! JUST WHAT! TELL ME!" the high and mighty Yami began to claw at his own arms but then he balled up a fist and raised it to strike on the children.

Suddenly Seto's hands were around Yami's wrists and he was hissing in his ear. "Don't touch either of them."

"Is this what you are here for?" Yami grinned.

"No." Seto's fangs gleamed in the light as he moved his head from behind Yami's "Children, please leave, we have things to talk about." The children hesitated because Seto was not their master.

Quick as lightening Seto threw his head back and brought it back down just as fast he sunk his fangs as deep as he could into Yami's neck. He ripped the huge chunk of flesh out and flung it as far he could. The children ran out screaming as Yami gave a primal, furious, screech and scream of shock and pain.

Seto threw his head back to deliver another attack but Yami broke free, sustaining deep cuts in his wrists and lower arms as Seto changed his grip slightly, putting his claws at an angle to slice at Yami's tendons and veins.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"

Seto only smiled and rushed at Yami, claws still extended and fangs at the ready, an inch long each those were his main weapon. Yami dodged but he was not up to par because the wound in his neck was severe and it would take mass amounts of blood and rest to heal it, both he did not have.

"I CAN AND WILL CRUSH YOU!" Yami launched an attack, he swung at Seto's face, but the punch was caught, then Seto felt the sharp pain as Yami raked his claws against Seto's face.

Seto pulled back and turned and threw Yami into a nearby wall. He soon followed, body slamming the elder.

"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!"

"Why don't I cry? Why don't I like being touched by you?" Seto whispered.

Yami stared at him. "WHY! WHY ALL OF IT!"

Seto smiled and then he felt the searing against his belly and he jumped back. Yami hefted a fireball which he then threw at Seto.

The blue eyed vampyr dodged the attack but then had to dodge three more consecutive attacks of the same. "Why did I never kiss you! Why did I sleep on my floor! Why don't I come back!"

Yami screamed and held his head. "JUST TELL ME WHY!"

Seto ran past Yami and raked his claws against the top of Yami's right hand which was over his ear, ripping out everything in it and rendered it useless. He heard Yami scream but then he felt the Pharoah's other hand grab him and throw him into the throne.

Seto stood to attack again but Yami pounced on him, throwing him back into the seat, and wrapped his hand over Seto's throat but he still allowed him the ability to speak. "Answer them all!"

"Why don't I scream for mercy? Why don't I cry? Who am I on the inside?" Seto questioned.

Yami was determined and stayed on top of him.

The old paintings were highly flammable and the room was near to becoming an inferno, the fire ran up all of the walls and was spreading to the ornamental drapes. One of the frames with a flaming picture crashed to the ground but still Yami stayed and Seto continued giving him all of the questions he had ever been asked. He watched as slowly Yami went more and more mad but it still wasn't enough to get him off or something.

Then he thought of one. His secret weapon.

"How come I never loved you?"

The room seemed to freeze. Seto looked straight into Yami's eyes that now wavered, the older breathed deeply and tears started up in his eyes.

"WHY! YES, WHY! WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME!" Yami screamed and he took his hand from Seto and he balled it up to punch Seto but the younger was faster he grabbed Yami's right arm and opened his mouth, he quickly pulled Yami forward, grabbed him in a crushing bear hug, and ripped into the other side of his neck. Another blood curdling scream came and Yami's good hand came down and ripped into half of Seto's face, blinding him in his left eye. Seto fought back the scream as he tore the flesh out.

Yami fought back as best he could, scorching Seto as much as he could but Seto held fast. Yami screamed in agony, spat curses and ripped and tore into Seto but it was the younger that had been destined for greatness and just as Yami was about to rip into Seto's neck with his teeth Seto snapped his spine with his teeth.

The vampyr stopped, was dead still in shock of his own death. Seto didn't loosen his grip, "Look, Yami, I'm finally hugging you. Does this mean I love you?"

There was no response and Seto just sat and waited for death, the room was fully ablaze and he knew he wouldn't get out. There was also the fact that he wanted to make sure the bastard in his arms was dead.

"He _is_ dead, please, Seto let's go." Seto turned his head a bit sleepily to his hallucination of Bakura.

This was his last chance and even if it was only a hallucination he felt he should say it. "I love you. I always have, you are my father, and I'm sorry for everything. I just wish I could have really saved everyone."

"Dear Love, please protect my brother Mokuba, please watch over Bakura and Pegasus and please care for those two other children. I just wish I could have done more." Seto's head rolled to the side and his body fell limp, he was just too tired.

"One day I'll be your champion, I'll save you, I'll protect you! I'll save us both!" a blue eyed boy full of wonder and love smiled a radiant smile as he made his declaration to his friend. "You and me! I like you best of all and so it'll be just you and me!"

"What about Bakura-san?" the friend, a little boy with sparkling eyes and even brighter silver hair exclaimed. He had sat clapping during his friend's declaration but when he didn't hear about Bakura, an adult friend to the boys, he wanted to know why.

"Oh yeah of course Bakura! I'll save him too! I'll be a real good hero!"

"And then what!" the silver haired boy giggled, he was excited and happy for the first time in what seemed like ages.

"When we're free we will go anywhere, do anything, and best of all we won't have to ask for permission! That's what's so great about being free, none of that permission and orders stuff!"

"Bakura, why are you so nice even though you're a vampyr? Why aren't you just like them?" a blue eyed boy asks as he looks up at his caretaker who is brushing his hair.

"Because I love you too much!" the man with white hair touches the boy's hair and smiles.

The boy laughs, "But weren't you nice from before?"

The man thought for a second, "Not always, but I guess I have been nice longer than I was bad."

The boy smiles but then his smile changes to one of determination. "I'm going to free us, I'm going to get strong enough and I'm going to free us because you are not like them! Just you, me and Pegasus!" the boy remembers his promise to his friend.

A blue eyed boy lays beaten, bruised, bleeding, and in pain all over in a small bed. "Ba…kura…kill me…" his hoarse voice pleads.

Tears fill the eyes of the boy's guardian. "I'm sorry my little Darkling."

The boy's head turns slowly. "You didn't come…I called…and called…"

"I'm sorry, Darkling! I couldn't come help you. I-…"

"I hate you…" the eyes pierced through the man even more than the boy's words.

"Yami has Unbound you, you are free now." A white haired man says happily to his charge.

The other does not look at him as he continues packing his things. There is no sign he even heard.

"You're free! Aren't you happy!"

The other, much younger, though no one can tell by looking at the two, turned his head and an eye as blue as the ocean gives a look to freeze the world's oceans. "Get out, I'm busy packing to leave."

"Oh…I just wanted to say goodbye and maybe see you off." The guardian said.

"Just get out of my sight." The youth snaps back.

"You lied Seto. You never came for me. You never saved me. You never protected me. You made false promises." A silver haired young man stares at the great Seto Kaiba who was once his friend. "You left me, got _your_ freedom, packed your fucking bags and left!"

A promise from his youth replays itself in Seto's mind. 'One day I'll be your champion, I'll save you, I'll protect you! I'll save us both!' "I'm sorry I-…"

"_You left me to suffer and rot with that Malik. You didn't even try! You just walked away and never looked back!_" the young man with silver hair hisses. "_I had to kill him! I had to do because I finally realized you had lied."_

'I'm sorry, I said those things, I made those promises. I'm sorry I let you _both_ down. I wish I could do it over, I wish I could have done the right thing, I wish I had never made either of you hurt.'

"Don't be so harsh on yourself, you did a wonderful job." A voice Seto's head answered.

'But I was suppose to kill Malik, I was supposed to free you, Pegasus, and I was going to take you out into the real world and we would be happy and perfect but instead I left my master and forgot all about you. And Bakura, I was supposed to free you too. I could have, I had the chance to but I didn't take it. I was supposed to be your son, I was supposed to love you, never abandon you, understand that there was nothing that you could have done. I was supposed to be your hero, I was supposed to be the champion and I let you both down and I'm sorry. More sorry than I think I could have ever expressed.'

"We still love you, we understand, but didn't let us down. You were there for Pegasus when he finally came to you, you helped him more than you could ever know. And Bakura came to you for help and you helped him. You didn't let anyone down."

'I just wish I could have told them.'

"We're listening, we hear you. Seto you have not yet reached the end of your rode."

"Yes my Darkling you have not yet joined the end."

Slowly Seto began to open his eyes, just testing to see if he even could, to his amazement he _could_ see, but it was only in one eye. Everything was very blurry but he saw two things move close to his face. "Bakura…? Pega…sus…?" his hoarse voice asked sheepishly.

"Yes."

"We're here, Seto."

A smile came upon the face of the broken beaten blue eyed man in the bed. "I love you both."

#Epilogue#

A week later…

Bakura smiled as Pegasus and Seto played with the children, he was so happy that they all had each other. He was especially happy that the children now had each other and that they were all going to be living together, Seto had adopted the boy, Yuugi, and his sister, Anzu.

He watched Seto who was working as best he could with whatever injuries he still had, including his eye that had been ripped out. The blood and rest along with the herbs were doing their job but the rehabilitation was going to be slow and everyone was learning to accept it.

Bakura heard a little snicker in his head and he quickly excused himself and went to a different room.

'I told you right from the get go that he would be a great champion!' a voice boasted. 'Yes and I told you if he loved you enough he'd save you! I told you he'd be _more_ than willing to do all the dirty work so long as you gave him a good reason.'

"You played him for a fool at times, that wasn't right!" Bakura hissed.

'Who cares what I did! _We_ made it out of that hellhole alive and that's all that matters, remember that.' The voice was not a very nice one.

"What you did was wrong, not helping him escape when we had the chance!" Bakura hissed again because he was angry but didn't want to shout and be heard.

'If he escaped all on his own he'd _never_ come back for us! I did what was best for _both_ of us!'

"You-!" Bakura started but three little hooligan came running in.

"Bakura! Come play!" they yelled in unison.

Bakura smiled and let them drag him off.

'Just remember you owe me.'

Bakura's face paled a bit.

"Bakura, is something the matter?" Seto asked, he looked concerned as he watched the children bring their favorite grown up in.

The white haired man smiled and laughs. "Everything's just fine." He then tagged little Yuugi and ran away. "Tag you're it!"


End file.
